It's December 24, 1999. Byron Easy, a poverty-stricken poet --- half-cut and suicidal --- sits on a stationary train at King's Cross waiting to depart. In his lap is a bag containing his remaining worldly goods: an empty bottle of red wine, a few books, a handful of crumpled banknotes. He is on the run. Not from the usual writer's trouble --- money trouble, soul trouble -- but special trouble, of a type you may have problems identifying with at first.